The great thing about
Garbage
-- the thing that nobody wants to mention -- is that they are veterans, from frontwoman
Shirley Manson
to the three studio pros who play the instruments. They slogged through the trenches of
alt-rock
in the '80s, whether it was in the U.S. or the U.K., and they came together at the precise moment in the '90s when they could fashion modern-sounding music with a keen eye to the present and modern. They consciously picked up elements from
shoegazing
,
trip-hop
, and
indie rock
-- anything sonically interesting in the underground, crafting them together with skill and a keen commercial eye. On their third record,
Beautiful Garbage
, that's more evident than ever, from how they approximate
contemporary R&B
with the sultry
"Androgyny,"
or the Minneapolis
new wave
bubblegum
funk
of
"Cherry Lips (Go Baby Go!),"
or the bluesy
PJ Harvey
strut of
"Silence Is Golden."
It's all the more evident because this has a shiny, sugary, unabashedly
pop
coating, an element that
clearly revel in, as well as should the listener. This is every bit as enticingly postmodern as their other albums, and it sounds distinctly
-- there are elements of
My Bloody Valentine
crashing up against
Tricky
, post-
Madchester
dance
jangle pop
goth
stance, and classic
-- but they seem less like magpies, more themselves, which means
is a more consistent record. It's unlikely to storm the charts like their first two records, especially since there aren't standout singles like on the earlier albums, but overall the record works better, perhaps their best album. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine